


when the night is new

by Adarian



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, but maybe, meta written based on potential spoilers, possible Endgame spoilers?, who the heck knows, written pre-endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 15:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18502216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adarian/pseuds/Adarian
Summary: Within the Soul Stone, Bucky has an out of body experience where he has memories of the two characters who have merged to create him. A mostly incomprehensible stream of consciousness drabble written by the human equivalent of a picture of Ben Affleck smoking.





	when the night is new

**Author's Note:**

> full disclosure: one of those kudos was me as a guest and it was an accident. My bad!

How had he not known what he was? He had been two people in one, had always been so, even if he had not understood before. There were two names, two identities, two different stories floating through his mind, and in this place it was hard to know what was true. 

Once there was a boy who had been born to be a soldier. A military brat and orphaned by the age of ten. A ward of the state, determined to remain and fight, and serve his country by any means he could. By sixteen, he was a soldier and a smuggler, sidekick to a boy barely older than him. Boys in masks, neither yet twenty. Vigilantes. Freedom fighters.

Once there was a boy from Brooklyn. A good Jewish boy with a dashing smile. Big, strong, confident. The perfect protector for a scrawny little Irish kid. Just a little punk of a kid - (No, the other boy called him that. But when? When could he have done that?) The boy from Brooklyn wore a mask too. Not the same one. He was a Romeo. He was a scamp. But he wasn't. By 16, he and his friend could no longer play together in peace. The world expected something from them both and the boy tried to include the withdrawn artist, the bright star in his sky that was beginning to fade. Had he loved him? No. Maybe. It was so long ago. He was his brother. His family was his. He was as much Roth as Rogers. He was his brother. No, for him it was Michael. He had been meant for Michael. 

The brat though, he had loved him in that way that only teenagers could. And maybe sometimes the punk loved him too. But then there was Natalia. He would have broken the world in two for her, split it down the middle for her. But Michael, he couldn't give Steve up for him, even when he wanted to. Maybe if it had come to it, the other boy couldn't either. It was Steve. Steve had stayed his hand even when he was truly lost. 

Steve. There was always Steve. That was the constant. Steve Rogers. He was always the same man, even when he wasn't. Maybe both boys had seen him through different eyes, but they had loved him both. Neither of them had been in love with him on their own but together maybe they did. Not with the infatuation of a teenager. No. This boy in one, whoever they were now, they had truly loved him. They had been together from the beginning and they would be together at the end. Until the end of the line. Which one had come up with that? The sailor or the soldier? The military brat or the Brooklynite? Did it matter? The soldier tried to avenge Steve's death. The sailor tried to live long enough to die with him. 

Barnes. Roth. Arnie. Bucky. In one life, one had protected him when he was weak, the other protected him when he was strong. But in this life...in this life, they were always with him. They were his other half. They carried one boy's name but they carried the other one's heart. They were both and they were the best friend from playground to battlefield and they were the Winter Soldier and they were the widowed sailor. They slept for an eternity in the ice and they lived their life in the open with the man they loved. They were immortal and they died of cancer within Steve's grasp. They were both. They had always been both. This place couldn't change that, no matter what visions it gave, no matter what words they heard. There was only one thing that mattered, the only thing that had ever mattered: the little punk from Red Hook and Captain America. Steve Rogers. Their Steve. His Bucky. 

Bucky could hear him. How? How in this haze could he hear him? But he could. Steve was here. Steve was right here.

In their voices both, he called for him, cried for him, and begged for him. He was through the glass, through the fields, just an inch from his touch. When this world would break, he would be whole again. These memories of two different lives would merge back into one again. Neither would exist outside the other. But neither mourned. They were coming home. This is where they belonged. With Steve. Their brother, their leader, their friend, their soul mate. 

_I'll see you soon_.

**Author's Note:**

> tl;dr: I love MCU Bucky Barnes so much and I'm already pissed at the Russos before the movie comes out. I also love 1980's Captain America so dang much. Also, not actually smoking because somehow my mother would know and she would end my existence. 
> 
> *takes a puff of imaginary cigarette* so let me tell you about Arnie Roth. In a quick summary, our dear Arnie was introduced in 1982 as Steve Rogers' childhood best friend. We got to meet him as a gay Jewish man in his 60's with thinning hair and a pot belly. I love him. He wasn't super openly gay because you know, the 80s, and there is definitely some bury your gay stuff happening there, but the thing I love about it is that in Reagan-Era bullshit, Marvel wrote Captain America as being super supportive of his gay best friend and being with him at his partner's funeral. He rescues Arnie at one point and I kid you not there is a speech he gives that makes me tear up thinking about him. Then when Steve is dying because of his powers fading (whatever, comics are complicated), Arnie returns because he's dying too (of cancer) and he wants to support him through it. Steve's last words to him, when Arnie is minutes away from death, are "I'll see you soon." I know, right?
> 
> I didn't know about Arnie until maybe four years ago when I was reading something and there was a flashback to them as kids and I was confused because wait, wasn't that Bucky's story line, and fell into the rabbit hole that so many have fallen in before me. MCU Bucky isn't really Bucky Barnes. He's Arnie Roth with the Winter Soldier story line stapled to him. Like what the junk? So is MCU Bucky gay and Jewish then if they're just cutting and pasting Arnie Roth's life into his? I had been thinking about this since Captain Marvel because of the collapsing of Monica Rambeau and Kit Renner into one character. Which was cute having a tiny LT Trouble, but at the same time, I mean, Monica Rambeau is really dang important to the Marvel Universe. And honestly, I should have known that since I've seen Spectrum/Photon in a few things here and there but there's a lot of comics and she's only been a bit player in the ones I've read. But she's really really important and really cool and was Captain Marvel for a lot longer than my girl Carol has been. So this is at least twice now where characters have been collapsed together, which makes sense if you're making a two hour film, but the marginalized character gets pushed to the side. Granted, I have no idea what they're going to do with MCU Monica, but her story becomes the Carol Danvers story. But anyways, it got me thinking about Arnie and how pissed I was at that. I don't expect people to know about Arnie because Comics but Marvel knew what they were doing when they merged the two of them. 
> 
> BUT THEN: Reddit shared a potential ending of Endgame that distracted me so much that I wrote this garbage. This is totally unconfirmed, but apparently in one version Steve destroys the Soul Stone to rescue everyone because he hears Bucky's voice. Then Steve goes back in time to live his life out with Peggy but Bucky stays behind because he gets a job offer? I dunno. Steve could also be dead. Who knows. *takes puff* Anyways, this just further irritated me because of Reasons and the MCU version of Bucky Barnes/Arnie Roth deserves better. 
> 
> So there's my meta which I think is longer than the drabble? Whatevs. *stubs out cigarette*


End file.
